This Topic is Archived
rbf1234 (original poster member #39471) posted at 5:28 PM on Wednesday, March 12th, 2014
Four stages:
1. ‘In love’ (feels that dopamine rush from another person)
2. Love (greatly values, cares for, and protects another’s emotional life)
3. Emotionally detached (separates one’s own emotional life from another; limits empathy)
4. Abusive (willing to hurt someone else for venal reasons – to evade responsibility, protect ego, or gain power in the relationship)
His meanness during the A years showed me that he wasn’t ‘in love’ with me anymore, but I thought he still loved me. DD I realized that he didn’t love me much or deeply. Weak remorse post DD: wow was he emotionally detached! False R (lying, cheating, TT, blaming), now that was abuse.
still-living ( member #30434) posted at 6:31 AM on Friday, March 14th, 2014
RB,
No responses so I will attempt. I don't know much about your story.
I believe the reasons for a WS having an affair are more often not about the WSs loving the BS, but rather, about the WS carrying a pain, and the WS using the AP to reduce the pain. Like a drug abuser using drugs however, the situation becomes worse. I strongly believe there are cases where a WS still loves a BS (loves at least to the best of their abilities) and the WS is "using" the AP. Regarding a WS's meanness and anger, this is a method to justify the affair is ok. My wife was irrationally angry frequently before the marriage and daily during the affair, and displays no anger now after working on herself.
She also claimed she never stopped loving me, but also made statements like maybe she didn't know how to love, was unlovable, came from bad, and she was bad. This was very difficult to understand early in our recovery, but through my own learning, it makes sense and I now believe what she was saying was true.
[This message edited by still-living at 12:38 AM, March 14th (Friday)]
This Topic is Archived
